Friday, June 20, 2014

Summer Kick-off Party!

This post is part of an ongoing Summer Reading for Kids series. Click HERE to find ideas for reading activities, reading lists, and reading incentives...and keep checking back for more! Our last day of school was last Thursday. So, naturally, Friday morning we had a little Summer Kick-off Party.

The Maestro made a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and gluten-free waffles (that Puccini really thought she might get to eat if she sat at the table with us).

After we ate, we talked with the girls about what our expectations, plans, and goals were for the summer. We reintroduced our 2013-2014 Family Theme and talked about ways we could better incorporate it into our lives this summer.

Since the theme is "My Body is a Temple: Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Spirit" I thought we would make physical, mental, and spiritual goals for the summer. I made some goal sheets that match the theme that is still framed in the dining room, and we used them to record our goals. The girls have hung their goal sheets up by their beds, and we will do check-ins every so often to help with accountability. (Mine is hanging next to my computer.)

We also talked about all the FUN things we each wanted to do this summer. We compiled a big list together, and I am planning on cute-ifying it and hanging it up in the kitchen so we can cross things off as we do them.

The girls can read whatever they want during the summer, and they do. We go to the library often and many books are chosen and read. But at the beginning of the summer, I put together these bins of books that they might not have chosen for themselves and I think of it as a gift to them at the beginning of the summer. And the girls LOVE it.

We gave them their bins and reading journals....

...and they couldn't wait to get started. They pretty much read all day, and have been reading quite a bit this week, too.

Nothing makes this mama happier than to see my children like this:

And this:

And this:

<

/div>

So far, after exactly one week of summer, Chloe has read three books, Bria has read one and is well into a second, and Sophia has finished two. Hooray for summer reading!

Lara Neves

Lara is mom to three daughters—two teens and a tween. She loves to share her parenting and homemaking triumphs and failures here at Overstuffed! She was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2015 and has been fighting it ever since. When she isn't working on her mother of the year award, you can find her reading, singing, or taking photos.

I love the book bin idea! And the breakfast for the first morning is a fun way to kick off summer. My kids have one more week of school but we're starting to plan our summer already. Thanks for these ideas!

This is a beautiful idea. Right now we are doing a reading challenge for the library and it is chugging along, but my girls prefer to be read to vs. reading to themselves. Our goal for the summer is to finish the entire Little House series. We are just starting on Book 2, so it may actually be possible.

A couple summers ago, part of our vacation was to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead in DeSmet, South Dakota. I read the first two books in the series to my girls before we left and they loved it so much. They are great read-aloud books!